Partners in Crime (Solving)
by andyoureturntome
Summary: Modern AU. The cop adventures of Jaime and Brienne as they investigate the disappearance of Lyanna Stark. Romance (duh) to follow!
1. Chapter 1

**It's amazing how inspiration will hit you when you're supposed to be doing something else. Take this, for example. I've been wanting to write this story for AGES but I finally got the motivation to do it right when I'm supposed to be studying for midterms. **

**About this story: it takes place in the same Modern AU world as my other story "My Sister's Wedding." Except in this first chapter, most of the story is going to be solely focused on Jaime and Brienne because they're awesome/amazing, and I love and ship them!**

**GRRM gets all credit for the characters and ASOIAF. I don't write this for profit!**

* * *

The shrill ringing of the phone blasted him into alertness. He shot up in bed, looking around in the blind panic that always seizes someone woken suddenly. Catelyn beside him kicked him in the side, pregnant and irritable. Robb's cries could be heard in the other room, and he heard his wife huff in annoyance. His two choices were either to pick up the phone or calm the baby, and seeing how Catelyn was already pushing herself out of bed, Ned knew his option was going to have to be the former.

Lifting the phone out of its cradle, he grunted a rough greeting. Silence hummed on the other end. Annoyed, he prepared to set the phone back down. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Catelyn return, Robb resting atop her slightly swollen stomach. Her lips were pulled into a tight line.

"Well, who is it?"

Then: "Ned?!"

The phone was inches from the cradle when her voice burst through, loud and hysterical. Both of them froze. Catelyn stiffened as Ned slowly brought the phone back to his ear.

"Lya?"

At the sound of his voice, he could hear her breath catch, and he knew she was on the verge of tears.

"Ned! Oh my God. Thank God you're home!"

"It's the middle of the night, Lyanna, of course I'm home."

"Oh. Is it?" She said it in a detached, frantic manner that terrified him.

"Lyanna, are you okay? What's wrong? Why are you calling so late?"

But his sister wasn't listening. On her end, he could hear the low rumbling of a male voice. As she listened, she breathed heavily into the phone, its pace quickening as the man spoke to her.

"Okay." Her voice broke pitifully over the word. More rumbling. "_Okay!_" She shouted it more desperately. Ned gripped the phone so tightly, his knuckles whitened, and his hand shook. Suddenly, she remembered he was there.

"Ned?!"

"I'm here," he practically shouted.

Robb started crying again at the loud noise, but Catelyn was so worried by her husband's behavior that she didn't dare scold him.

"Ned, I need you to promise me something. If something ever happens to me, I need you to take care of Jon."

"What's going to happen to you?!"

"Just promise me, Ned!"

"Are you in danger? What's happening? Where's Robert? Who's with you?"

But his questions were lost in the rumblings of the other man who had started speaking again. He closed his eyes and strained his ears, trying to make out the words that he was saying or at least discern the man to whom the voice belonged.

"I know! I know!" she sobbed in Ned's ear.

At this point, he was stumbling out of bed, trying to find clothes in the dark.

"Lyanna, I'm coming to get you."

"No, Ned! That's not necessary. Just promise me, Ned. Promise me."

"Where are you?"

"Promise me, Ned?" Her voice was barely a whimper now, hoarse and ragged. It was all she would say.

"I promise."

The line went dead and the buzzing filled his ears and nearly drove him mad. Catelyn's hand on his shoulder made him jump. Tentatively, she settled on the bed beside him. Robb had quieted down but was still fussy. He blinked querulous blue eyes up at them.

"What was that about?"

His heavy sigh filled the room.

"I don't know, but I think something's horribly wrong with Lyanna."

"But you know how your sister is."

"I know, Cat, but this time it feels different. Worse."

"Worse than a teenage runaway, an unexpected pregnancy, and a thirty-year-old boyfriend?"

He felt a ripple of uncertainty beneath his worry.

"You're probably right. She just sounded so frantic, though."

Catelyn transferred Robb to cradle him against one shoulder and pulled Ned's head onto her other one. She rocked them both to sleep, inexplicably more anxious than she let on.

* * *

Neither one of them discussed the strange affair from the night before in the bright light of morning. All of the dramatics seemed so foolish in the easy reality of day. Catelyn cooked breakfast as she did normally, trying to keep a now-cooing Robb happy while at the same time trying to get her husband ready for work. Ignoring the bulk of food spread over the counter, Ned grabbed a piece of toast and choked it down, not having time for anything else. Catelyn fastened his tie quickly. Gulping down a glass of orange juice, he grabbed his briefcase. He gave Robb a kiss on the head and headed for the door. Catelyn followed him, and he gave her a sweet kiss on the lips and a gentle pat on the stomach, just as he always did.

Climbing into his car, he smiled as she waved goodbye.

"Have a good day!"

"Thanks, sweetheart. I love you."

"And I love you."

They said the same words every morning, but today, they felt heavier on their tongues, seemed to have more import. After he pulled out of their long driveway, Catelyn sighed and went back inside, shutting the front door behind her. Their palatial house felt too big with just her and Robb.

As usual, she had cooked too much food, and she slumped her shoulders when she returned to the kitchen to face the mess from the hectic morning. Ned often teased her about how much she cooked, and she would always tease him back that she needed more kids to feed. All her life, she'd dreamed of having a big family with lots of kids. She and Ned hadn't been married for long, but already, their life together looked promising.

Her day passed easily, and Catelyn spent it cooking and cleaning and playing with Robb. Every now and then, she would feel a slight twinge that something was wrong, something was off, but she would shake it away, chalking it up to lack of sleep from the night before. Even that explanation couldn't satisfy her, and there was an annoying tug at the back of her mind that would throb uncomfortably whenever she thought about Ned's sister.

She worried about the girl. She'd lost her mother young, and she had grown up wild with all of her older brothers. The more she thought about it, the more uneasy she became. By the time she heard Ned come home from work, she had worked herself up into a ball of nervous energy.

Glancing at the clock, she saw that it was well past eight. With a frown, she realized that Ned had been working longer and longer hours at the law firm, and the stress was evident in the dark circles under his eyes and the lines on his face. Having a baby had put extra strain on him, but she knew he loved his son too much to complain.

She greeted him with a long, lingering kiss before going to set the table for dinner. Ned helped her, and they made quick work of eating, making quiet conversation. Ned was too tired to make much effort, and Catelyn was too preoccupied to make truly substantive conversation.

When they were finished eating, she started clearing the table. Ned rose to help her when the front doorbell rang. Curiously, he shot a confused look in her direction, but she only shrugged. With a heavy groan, he lumbered to the front door and swung it open, revealing a petite girl with short, platinum blonde hair. He studied her suspiciously, unsure of the stranger on his doorstep. In her arms, she held a crying dark-haired baby. With an exhausted look on face, she tried and failed to calm the infant. When she glanced up at him, his heart stopped.

"Lyanna?" he sputtered. "What happened to your hair?"

She patted it self-consciously with her free hand. Shifting from foot to foot, she looked away from him.

"I just…needed a change," she said evasively.

Glaring at her, he tried to pull her into a hug, but she was stiff against his body. As she pulled away, she left Jon in his arms. The boy stilled in his arms, his crying finally coming to an end. She stepped back, slipping into the darkness of night that was just outside the reach of the porch light. Before her face became completely obscured, he thought he saw a tear slip down her cheek.

"Won't you come inside? I haven't seen you in months. _I'm worried about you, Lya_."

Her hand ghosted up to his arm, but she remained hidden from his view. Vaguely, he could see the whites of her eyes reflecting in the night.

"I can't, Ned. He's waiting for me."

Looking over her shoulder, he could just barely discern an expensive black car purring in the driveway. A figure with silvery white hair sat silhouetted in the driver's seat.

"Can you babysit for the night? We're going out, but we should be back in the morning."

Before he could protest or argue with her, she leaned forward and gave them both a quick kiss before darting off into the night. No sooner had she clambered into the car than it sped away from the curb, tires emitting a horrible squealing noise that echoed in his ears long after they'd gone.

For the first time in his life, he looked down at his nephew. With dark curls and serious grey eyes, he looked just like Lyanna did when she was a baby. _Before she'd undergone the strange transition he'd just seen._ Stepping in the front door, he turned to find Catelyn watching him. Her eyes fell to the little bundle against his chest, and he saw the way her eyes tightened in disapproval.

Because it was his sister, she didn't say a word. She merely took the child from Ned and brought him to join Robb in the playpen she'd moved him to. Settling on the couch, Catelyn and Ned watched the two babies play with each other.

Catelyn drifted to sleep against his chest, but Ned could find no rest. He tried dialing Lyanna's cell phone several times, but it kept going straight to voicemail. Even as her son smiled up at him, Ned couldn't help but feel that something was terribly, terribly wrong.

* * *

Jaime hauled himself out of bed, his entire body aching and protesting. Massaging his head, he cursed. He had only gone to bed an hour ago, and here he was, up again. Somewhere in the distance, he could hear his phone ringing, but he ignored it for the moment, not ready to deal with people before he'd had his coffee. Clad only in his boxers, he stumbled his way into his kitchen.

Yelping in surprise, he found his twin sister sitting at the table regarding him with a knowing look.

"Rough night last night?"

"You have no idea."

He saw that she had brewed a fresh pot of coffee, and he loved her for it. Her own glass was filled with orange juice, and she swirled it around thoughtfully. The giant rock on her left fingered glittered cheaply in the yellow sunlight of morning. She was still watching him as he poured himself a cup and hefted himself on top of the counter. The minutes ticked by, and Cersei seemed ready to say something when his phone bleated again.

He drained his cup and began digging through the miscellaneous crap in his apartment until he finally dug out his cell phone from beneath a pile of takeout containers. It had stopped ringing, but he saw that he had several missed calls from the precinct. Cersei wrinkled her nose at the filth surrounding her, perching herself archly in a kitchen chair. He threw an empty container at her, and she made an annoyed noise, batting it away.

"Why did you break into my apartment this fine morning, dear sister?"

Again, she opened her mouth, gearing up to tell him something, and again, his phone interrupted them. He could tell by the look on her face that it was something huge, but she seemed unwilling to let it out. Answering the call, he turned away from her, a confused frown pulling his eyebrows together as he listened to the person on the other end.

The call only lasted a few minutes, and after a hurried goodbye, he looked at her again, their emerald eyes glinting identically.

"Big case?"

He nodded slowly.

"Missing persons case. High profile. Just turned into a potential murder."

Her face paled slightly, and she took a long drink from her cup. He suspected the orange juice wasn't all alone in there.

"Woman or man?"

"Huh?" he grunted as he dug through piles of clothes and pulled on a relatively clean pair of pants.

"The missing person. Was it a woman or a man?"

"I don't know. Didn't ask. They just told me to get my ass down there as soon as possible. Why?"

"Well, I hope you find them," she said, ignoring his question and leaping off her seat to head for the door. Without looking back, she wrenched it open and bolted down the hallway.

Mystified, he shook his head. Sometimes, his sister could be so strange. He yanked on a shirt and walked over to his refrigerator, wrenching open the door and searching for something quick to eat. He had nothing, and he closed it in annoyance.

He combed his fingers through his hair and headed out the door and down to his car. With a groan, he suddenly remembered that today was going to be even more terrible than he'd originally thought. Today was the day he was going to get assigned to his new partner. The last thing he needed was to have to train a new kid on the force. It was a waste of time, and quite frankly, his talent.

He sped toward the precinct; his conversation with Cersei had set him back more than he'd realized. He vaulted himself out of his car, slammed its door shut, and pounded up the front stairs of the building. Rushing past other officers and detectives, he nodded curtly to them, not missing the way most of him regarded him with deference that bordered on resentment.

There had been a lot of talk about him ever since he had become one of the youngest detectives on the force. Many said that he had bought himself that position, but those whispers had all but died out as he'd proven himself time and time again. He had started out by going undercover to help bring down several drug kingpins. His success had been so prolific that it'd even garnered him the nickname Kingslayer. Others called him far worse, he knew, but it didn't bother him. He was used to whispers about his family.

"Lannister!" a nearby detective roared, clapping a hand on his shoulder. His lip pulled back in disgust, Jaime slipped his way out of the man's slimy touch. Meryn Trant was one of the cruelest, least desirable men he'd ever known , and he'd been tempted to set Internal Affairs on him many times throughout his career.

"Trant," he nodded.

"You get your new partner today, I hear. They say she's very promising, but that's not a surprise. They always save the best for Jaime Lannister."

Ignoring his sneer, Jaime chose to focus instead on a detail that brought a glimmer of hope to his so far shitty day.

"She?"

Trant laughed, and Jaime couldn't help but feel that he wasn't quite in on the joke.

"Yeah, and I hear she's quite the beauty too?"

"Really?" Jaime purred. Beauty, he could work with. He shouldered past the man over to his desk. The one next to his, usually empty, now had a very large, blonde man sitting there with his back to him. Sauntering forward, he slapped a hand on his shoulder. Leaning down, he spoke in a light and friendly tone.

"Now, I'm sure you are a nice guy and all, but you're going to have to move. You see, this desk belongs to my partner."

The broad figure in the chair turned to look at him, and with a shock, he realized that he wasn't a man at all, but rather, a very ugly woman. She had short cropped hair, a broad face full of freckles, and prominent uneven teeth. She was glaring at him with unparalleled loathing in her surprisingly beautiful blue eyes. She grabbed his hand and threw it from her shoulder aggressively and then stood, unfolding her tall frame until she was standing at her full height. Grudgingly, he noted the way she stood as tall as he did, if not an inch or two taller.

"So I take it you're my partner?"

"You're late" was her only reply.

He snorted.

"Isn't it my role to be the disapproving superior?"

"Maybe if you actually _were_ superior," she grumbled, shouldering past him. She turned to look at him with a gaze full of ire. "I'm Brienne. Brienne Tarth."

"Pleasure, Tarth," he smiled. "I'm Jaime. Jaime Lannis—"

"I know who you are."

"Then you must know quite a lot," he said with a roguish grin. "So tell me, do you know why we were called in today?"

"More information came in on a missing persons case, leading them to believe that it could be murder."

"What information?"

She shrugged.

"I don't know. We're supposed to talk to him," she said, nodding toward the tall, grey-eyed man with red-rimmed eyes who was standing stoically in the midst of all of the officers and detectives milling about.

"Ah. Well, that's going to be a problem," he said lightly as they started walking toward him.

"And why is that?"

"Because Ned Stark still believes that I had something to do with his brother's death, and he hates me for it."

As if to reinforce this statement, Ned looked at him with such a black rage that even Jaime's cool exterior melted a bit.

"You just make friends wherever you go, don't you?"

Rolling her eyes, she extended a hand for Ned to shake, and after a moment's hesitation, he took it, never taking his eyes off of Jaime.

"Mr. Stark, I understand you have some information you'd like to give us in regards to your sister's case."

Silently, he nodded at her, and Brienne led them all into an interview room. Jaime knew that he should be irked that she was taking the lead on this, but he found that he rather liked her brash and brusque demeanor, and he found her honesty a refreshing departure from all the bullshit he was used to hearing and seeing. Also, he couldn't help but notice the way her eyes shone confidently as she took charge, sparkling with a beauty that was incongruous with the rest of her ungainly face.

"So, what have you got for us?" Jaime asked flippantly. He knew he should be more sympathetic, but he found it far more satisfying to match the man's hatred with his own hostility.

"I have reasons to believe that my sister was abducted and is now very likely dead."

Silence followed this shocking pronouncement, and both Jaime and Brienne held their tongues so as to allow him to continue.

"The last time I spoke to my sister, I could tell something was off. She kept insisting that I promise to take care of her son should anything happen to her. She kept speaking as though some imminent danger hung above her, but she wouldn't tell me what it was. And everything was moving so fast, and nothing made sense."

"Would you say she was acting erratically?"

"Well, yeah. But I don't think it's drugs!" he was quick to add. "It's her boyfriend," he added in a quieter tone.

"Something changed the day she met Rhaegar Targaryen."

Jaime nodded. He'd heard the stories about the Stark girl and the silver-haired man. The two of them had caused quite the scandal. Lyanna Stark, the proverbial good girl with a touch of the wild side, had been engaged to Robert Baratheon when she'd met Rhaegar Targaryen. A man of thirty, he had been two years shy of being twice her age, and he had seduced her in a most shocking fashion.

What happened next was a bit of a mystery except to Lyanna, Rhaegar, Robert, and he suspected, Ned. She had gotten pregnant, but no one was sure to whom the child belonged. Robert, in all of his obliviousness, hadn't noticed his fiancé's infidelity. In fact, it took him months to piece it together and even longer than that to decide to marry her anyway.

Clearly, the marriage had never happened—there was a reason why Robert's gaudy ring was situated on his sister's lovely long finger.

"Do you think Rhaegar Targaryen has her?"

"He was the last person I saw her with. She got into a car and drove away with him."

"Interesting. We'll be contacting the Targaryens, don't you worry."

"Forgive the impudence, Mr. Stark, but how can you be so sure that your sister didn't just run away for a while? I understand that your family knows that she has a tendency to cut off contact for a while and disappear."

"This time is different."

"And what about it is so different?"

"Because she left me this."

Ned dug around in his pockets, finally pulling out a cell phone and placing it on the table between them. After changing the settings and clicking a couple of things, he allowed his voicemail to play on speakerphone. Her voice, usually so rich and full of life and laughter, sounded tinny on the phone and very far away.

"Ned, please, promise me."

* * *

**So many secrets! I will hopefully update this soon and flesh out those complicated relationships a bit more.**

**This isn't going to be an especially long fic, and it's going to dovetail with my other story eventually. But it is a standalone, and you don't have to read "My Sister's Wedding" to understand this, just as you won't need to read this to understand "My Sister's Wedding." I just love writing them in modern times, and I felt like giving Jaime and Brienne some adventures!**

**Thanks to anyone who read! I'm a little uncertain about this story, so please be kind to me! xxx**

**PS everyone is in their early twenties for the most part. I have a full age list that I'll post next time, but it's not super vital to the understanding of the story.**


	2. Chapter 2

**I have no idea what came over me, but I started writing this chapter, and it came quicker and easier than anything I've written in a long time. I have a couple of long-ish notes to address at the end of the chapter, but without further ado, here's chapter two:**

**(GRRM gets credit for all characters and ASOIAF. I don't write for profit.)**

* * *

Nonplussed, Jaime stared at the phone. Brienne was studying it with a critical look on her face, but Jaime suspected that she was just pretending to find meaning in the otherwise benign voicemail. Rolling his eyes, Jaime made to exit the room.

"Where do you think you're going?"

Amazed, he turned to stare at perhaps the only person in his life (besides his father) who would dare question him, let alone speak to him in such a condemning tone.

"Well, I assumed we were done here. If Mr. Stark is done wasting our time, we can go ahead and pass the case back to Missing Persons. This isn't our problem."

Sputtering in disbelief, Ned looked between the two of them in utter astonishment. Jaime saw his hand clench into a fist and wondered with vague disinterest if he was resisting the urge to hit him.

"I don't think it's wasting your time to ask you to do your _job_!" He didn't quite shout, but his self-control was slipping just enough to make his words louder than they would have been normally.

"My _job_ is to solve murders, not find little girls who skipped town with their boyfriend!"

Ned's knuckles were practically white with the force of his grip, and this time, Jaime had no doubt that the man would have loved nothing more than to punch him—hard. Brienne was glaring at him, too, and she had subconsciously shifted her body so that she was standing on Ned's side of the room, in opposition to her partner.

"Mr. Stark," she began in placating tones, "not that I'm doubting the legitimacy of your claim, but perhaps you could explain your reasoning a bit better?"

With a calming sigh, Ned turned his wrathful gaze from Jaime and morphed it into a less hostile one for Brienne.

"Two weeks ago, my sister showed up on my doorstep and asked me to babysit while she and Rhaegar went to dinner, and she never came back."

"Was there anything strange about that occurrence other than the fact it was the last time you saw her?"

Ned lapsed into silence, and he seemed unwilling to say anything else. Finally, begrudgingly, he answered her slowly.

"Yes. She had cut off all of her hair and dyed it blonde."

Jaime's eyes snapped over to Ned's face.

"You do realize that you're just giving us more and more reasons to think that she just ran away from home, right? I mean, do you think it's just a coincidence that she severely altered her appearance and then disappeared shortly after?"

Ned's face colored red with anger, Jaime's reaction clearly what he was expecting. Brienne shot her partner a withering stare before motioning for him to not talk anymore.

"She wouldn't do that! She wouldn't leave Jon. I know my sister, and Lyanna loved her son more than she loved anything in this world."

"Did you have any contact with her prior to her visit two weeks ago?"

"We talked on the phone a lot, but I hadn't seen her in person in a little under a year. I don't think Rhaegar liked her to be in contact with me," he finished bitterly.

"So how can you be sure that she was stable before this?"

"Lyanna was not unstable," he shot back hotly. "She made some bad decisions, yes, but she was learning to live with them, and no one could ever be a better mother than she was to Jon.

"She called me the night before she dropped him off and begged for me to promise to take care of him if anything should happen to her. Then, she left me that horrifying message. What am I to surmise other than the fact that something has happened to her?"

Jaime narrowed his eyes. Despite the melodrama, something was ringing true in Ned's words. Something felt off.

"How long ago did she leave this message?"

Ned sighed.

"I got it this morning, but she left it yesterday around three in the afternoon. I left work early yesterday and stupidly left my phone in the office. I missed the last words she ever said."

"She's not dead yet, Mr. Stark," Brienne said, obviously trying to comfort him. She was a bit awkward around people, Jaime noticed, trying to hide a smile at her unintentionally insensitive remark. He found her verbal clumsiness endearing for some reason, and he felt compelled to help her out.

"She's right. You need a body for a murder."

Ned looked more pained if that were at all possible, and Brienne realized with a cringe that they hadn't done much to ease his worries. With an uncomfortable look at Jaime, who only stared at her with a disarming half-smile, Brienne coughed awkwardly before looking back at Ned. He looked terrible, and she felt terrible for him.

Though she had never met the man, she knew that he had a good reputation in the community, and that he came from one of the oldest, wealthiest families in Westeros didn't hurt either. For all the charm that it held, his life was not without hardship. He had lost his father in a terrible fire when he was young, and his older brother's death had been something of a scandal. Even she didn't know all the details, but she knew it somehow involved the Targaryens and apparently, her new partner.

Ned's other brother, Benjen, was a bit of a basket case, and he had grown disillusioned after the death of his father and brother. The scandal with Robert, Lyanna, and Rhaegar had pushed him past his breaking point, and he had enlisted in the army around the time Lyanna had eloped. As she stared at the young man in front of her who suddenly seemed much older, she realized that with his sister's disappearance, he had perhaps lost the last vestiges of his family that he had left.

No, that wasn't quite right, she realized as she remembered that he had married Catelyn Tully, an old friend of hers from college. Acquaintance was probably a better word as they hadn't kept in touch, but Brienne felt that they had been through so much that their relationship was hard to define.

Ned sighed again, and she wished she knew how to comfort him, but people skills weren't her forte. She knew that Jaime could be charming when he wanted, but as she glanced at his haughty face, she decided that he must not have been feeling particularly charitable at the moment. Shoving away her frustrations—it wasn't professional to showcase her annoyance in public—she returned her attention to Ned.

"Mr. Stark, is there anything else you can think of that you wanted to add?"

He shook his head.

"No. Just, please, find my sister."

He got to his feet heavily and shook her hand. After a moment's hesitation, Jaime extended his own hand, and the two of them didn't so much shake as they attempted to break one another's hands.

After Ned left, Jaime pulled out his phone and began rapidly typing. Brienne cleared her throat impatiently, and he glanced over at her with only the vaguest hints of interest. Before she could get onto him for texting instead of working on the case, he walked toward her and wordlessly handed her the phone.

On its screen, she could see that he had pulled up a video of some sort. On it, a man with long, curling fingernails and even longer white hair was shouting at a group of reporters, his veins bulging and his eyes popping madly.

"Denys Darklyn is a coward and a fool! That I am still alive is a testament to that fact! This should be a lesson to all of you who are trying to kill me, the Targaryens will rain fire and blood on anyone who tries to cross us!"

The man was hysterically shouting at that point, and he was so overcome with emotion that he was unable to answer any of the questions that the reporters were asking. He was raving, Brienne could tell, and as he stared, bug-eyed at the crowd, she was a little surprised to see that he wasn't foaming at the mouth. The video cut off after that, and she handed Jaime back his phone with her eyebrows raised in question.

"I think we should start with him," Jaime said, not without a touch of sarcasm.

He was watching her appraisingly, and she knew that he was waiting to see what she would say. It was well known that Aerys Targaryen was crazy, but that didn't necessarily make him dangerous. He had started out promisingly, building his family's company into the largest arm's manufacturers in the world. It was from this enterprise that he had fashioned the company's slogan somewhat ironically. "We sell fire and blood," he had proudly announced at one of his early press conferences, much to the amusement of all involved.

At the time, the mogul had been hailed as one of the most promising up-and-comers of his generation. It wasn't until later that things had gotten a little…weird. One day, out of the blue, he had a son, Rhaegar. This sudden presence of a child had left the world stunned. Not only did Aerys have no wife, he had no reported girlfriends of any kind, either. It was around this time that he became a bit of a recluse too, shunning the media and refusing to answer any questions about his son's parentage. Two more children had followed after that, a boy and a girl, but they were rarely seen in public.

Rumors had begun swirling, the nastiest of which naming Aerys' sister as the children's mother. She had been living with her brother for most of their lives, and it had been noted on more than one occasion that their behavior was a bit unorthodox, if not unnatural. The lens of the media took on a cruel glare as Aerys came under more and more scrutiny.

His sister started showing signs of bruising and black eyes, and she had been rushed to the hospital with enough injuries from "falling" that it was starting to cause some raised eyebrows. After whispers of abuse began cropping up, Rhaella stopped leaving the house, leading many to accuse Aerys of holding her hostage.

Despite public outcry, the police didn't get involved, and Brienne suspected that Tywin Lannister's friendship with the man and his considerable control over the police force is what kept them at bay. Still, Aerys' company thrived, and he was fast becoming one of the most powerful men in Westeros.

It wasn't until the Duskendale affair that things had begun to completely unravel. After absconding in his compound for years, Aerys had emerged a little over a year ago, looking like an emaciated vagrant, ranting about an attempt on his life and how he was the apparent target of a ruthless drug lord. The ludicrousness of that claim would have been amusing had his madness not been so alarming.

Naturally, the media had flocked to him to hear his fantastical tale about a man, who merely went by "Duskendale," had tried to have him killed because he refused to provide arms for his cartel. The story circulated eagerly at first, and people were fascinated with his tale of intrigue and retribution. Upon further investigation, police could find no evidence of such a man, not even when Aerys had produced his real name: Denys Darkllyn.

The alliterative aspect of his name alone should have been ample evidence of the figure's fictitious nature, and police were later able to confirm that no man by that name was shown to have ever existed. The public had quickly grown bemused with Aerys' continued assertions of the veracity of his claims, and it hadn't taken them long to stop listening to his convoluted lies.

The sad truth was, Aerys Targaryen was the most pathetic example of a man gone to ruin that anyone could think of. In a very public, very embarrassing way, his descent into madness and the devolution of his legacy were chronicled and mocked. The video Jaime had shown her was Aerys' last interview before he had disappeared back into the walls of his compound.

"I was part of the Duskendale investigation, you know," Jaime drawled lazily, rolling his eyes.

Brienne nodded. Tywin had pulled a lot of strings to get his son into the police force, and investigating drug rings was how Jaime had gotten his start as a detective.

"In the course of the investigation, I had to interview a lot. He is the craziest son of a bitch I have ever had the displeasure of meeting. If I never had to speak to him again, it would be too soon."

"We have to talk to him, though. He could be the only person who knows where his son is."

Jaime nodded at her. He knew she was right, but he still didn't relish the idea of talking to the man again.

"We should probably call ahead and give him a day or two to digest that we're coming. I'm afraid that if we show up on his front lawn, he'll 'rain fire and blood upon us' or whatever the hell he was saying."

Brienne nodded.

"Well, since your father and he are such good friends, it should be easy to get us in."

Jaime narrowed his eyes.

"You know, not everything is handed to me because of my father."

"Sure," she scoffed.

He didn't know why, but it irked him that she thought that he didn't earn his position. Usually, people's opinions didn't matter much to him, but something in her judgment made him want to prove himself. _Which was utterly ridiculous_.

As she flipped through the files they had on Lyanna and Rhaegar, he scrolled through his texts. The majority were from his siblings, and a few were from women he hazily recalled, if he remembered them at all.

"Well," he said, stretching out the word, "I guess there's nothing else we can do, so we should just call it a day."

She stared at him incredulously.

"Are you joking? We gave Ned Stark our word that we would help find his sister. How is going home early fulfilling that promise? We have work to do, Lannister, whether you like it or not!"

"Jesus, Tarth! Calm down! I was only joking."

He had, in fact, been completely serious, but he felt no need to tell her that. Instead, he followed her back to their desks where he pretended to look things up while she studied leads.

After hours of boredom, it was finally time to go home, and as she stood to go without so much as a goodbye, his phone went off. Skimming the contents of the text quickly, he glanced up from the screen to watch her packing up to go. He had no idea what made him say it, but before he could stop the words, he heard himself asking,

"Hey Tarth, how'd you like to go to a family dinner with me?"

* * *

**Ah, exposition, my old nemesis. Backstory is so hard to flesh out in an interesting manner, and though I cringe from using flashbacks, I think I might start making use of them in this story. Not too much, just to fill in some past gaps.**

**Character ages (in case anyone desperately wanted to know): Cat: 23; Ned: 27; Robb & Jon: 1; Lyanna: 19; Robert: 28; Jaime & Cersei: 22; Tyrion: 20; Brienne: 21; Stannis: 33; Renly: 8; Loras: 5; Sandor: 13; Rhaegar: 30; Daenerys: 10; Viserys: 17. Obviously, I expect you to remember all of these. hahaha. Just kidding. Clearly, some of them are characters that haven't been introduced…yet…**

**Thanks for reading! xxx**


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